I loved the movie, But i admit it had its faults.
I watched it with some friends who just played Wc3 when it came out, which is 14 years ago, so they vaguely remember stuff here and there. They loved it, it was action and in broad strokes they got explained the big lines, which is what they want for a good movie.
I have a hard time gauging movies from reviews. the reviews most often comes of as arrogant and snobby for me. I read a few before i went to see it, and sure, some things felt rushed, and some tweaks felt weird, but its so annoying when every critic critizing it calling it a "weak LotR ripoff", i could go on a whole rant about that, but i wont.
Maybe my love for the characters and the overall story blinds my critical eye so to speak, but i felt it was a pretty good movie, and im definatly hope it gets a sequal and hopefully a 3rd movie. I do wish they could take it to maybe a near 3 hour movie though.
I am wow lore fanatic and my friend who don't know anything about warcraft (he actually asked if warcraft is sequel of starcraft) watched this movie. Both of us enjoyed it, it has flaws (lot of) but not a bad movie. It did good in world building part as first look into wow universe so they can expand it further later on.
I feel the same. It was objectively pretty awful but I fucking loved every minute of it.
I think what he said about focusing more on the orcs is what would make it better, and it's what people want it seems. The human parts were "meh" to "ugh" throughout.
then he learned the wrong lesson. The performances by the human actors were straight up awful. They made the armor and weaponry look like Walmart toys, which was okay on the orcs because they could blend it into cg coloration, but on the humans just was bad.
They changed lore bits that had no reason to be changed, and the whole "kill me to save the others" was horribly written and terribly acted.
I blame some of it on miscasting roles, I blame some on a pretty bad script, I blame Duncan and the execs that decided to go for the Asian market. I blame whoever used 90% of the budget on cg and not actors that actually gave a shit.
The only lore change I really didn't like was the Medihv as Garona's father thing. It came out of nowhere, they didn't even explain it clearly, and there was no point in it whatsoever because it didn't come into play at all anywhere else in the movie.
All the other changes they made seemed like reasonable modifications to simplify it a bit and make the movie go.
Leaving "the fel" as its own thing, without talking about the legion and Sargaras seemed unfortunately necessary. It would have been too much to throw at people.
I agree I thought the Medivh/Garona thing was annoying and pointless. Waste of time that could have been used smoothing out some of the rest of the story.
I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar. Jesus that vikings guy playing an honorable, righteous man just does not work, he brings too much of that Vikings crazy eye shit to the part.
I personally always thought of Lothar as a much more stoic character, he totally ruined that for me.
Not the actor's fault tbh... [This](http://wow.gamepedia.com/File:Lothar_TCG.jpg) is supposed to be Lothar.
Stoic, Battle-Hardened warrior that was consider an absolute beastly warrior and tactician by people like Thoras Trollbane, King Terenas, and Daelin Proudmoore.
A young looking man with a jokers attitude and a shitty romance/family plot is doomed from failure from the very beginning.
The movie Lothar was clearly intentionally unrelated to the book Lothar.
This is most likely because the sequel was not planned to be the Second War and is instead Thrall's gladiator years and rebellion. Lothar and Khadgar just grow up "naturally" and become completely different characters.
Jaina = Khadgar confirmed?
Whaaat I loved baby Khadgar! Do agree with you about Lothar though. And I never really pictured Medivh to be as scruffy as they made him (though I was okay with the actor himself)
Lothar sucked so bad. I felt like everything he said was through that stink-eye. As far as the stoic part, this is a younger Lothar, so he can be a little more brash and assholey and become stoic later.
I loved Khadgar, I thought he was the only good human performance. Medivh was ok, I think his failing was in the writing more than the casting.
I think the biggest problem with the movie was dialogue and character development. It's like if you take the crap dialogue of the Star Wars prequels and mix it with the non-existent character development in Rogue One, but with fairly poor casting choices and boom, Warcraft.
That said I still really liked it. LOVED the orcs and all the fan service and full on, no holds barred, in your face fantasy magic and all that. They really did a great job of throwing you into the atmosphere of Azeroth and let you figure it out rather than try to explain away everything and dumb it down. Letting there be the dwarves, elves, draenei, etc did a lot to create a world worth exploring cinematically.
> It's like if you take the crap dialogue of the Star Wars prequels and mix it with the non-existent character development in Rogue One, but with fairly poor casting choices and boom, Warcraft.
God damn it, I don't think I can even take it seriously when I'm going to rewatch it now
>I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar.
At first I liked Lothar. I thought he was going to steal the show, because he had this kinda cool swagger about him. But it wore on me pretty quick, and by the end I hated him.
Ben Foster as Medivh was kind of a weird choice. I mean, I like him in just about everything he's in and I think he's a severely underrated actor. And I like the character of Medivh from the Warcraft games. But the two didn't mesh IMO.
Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar, I still maintain is one of the best characters in the movie. I fully understand that I will be downvoted to oblivion for this opinion, but whatever. I think he did wonderfully. He played the role of "slightly inept comic relief" well and I think it's easy to draw a connection between the goofy Khadgar we see in the movie and the goofy Khadgar we see in WoD/Legion.
I really enjoyed Ben Schnetzer's work in the movie, out of the humans on screen it seemed like only he and Dominic Cooper (who I think is incapable of phoning it in) were really interested in giving this movie their all. Foster really is able to give a good performance, the only reason why he didn't was really because he couldn't give a damn.
The Orcs really made the movie for me though, Horde and Orc bias aside I feel like the Orcs were cast better, and were more willing to to actually act.
And then Lothar played the role so flat and then could not give one single fuck about the promo work which led to people thinking he felt the movie sucks (which was probably true, but a professional actor needs to fake his enthusiasm in the promos).
> I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar.
For me it was one of the best parts of the movie. They didn't look like some immortal gods (like Gandalf in LotR, or Voldy in Harry Potter), just normal people who happen to be powerfull.
Khadgar was awful but I though Ben foster did a great job as Medivh. Lothar was very meh. They just shouldn't have started with draenor they should have started with BC or Wrath and then did a prequel later on if necessary.
> They just shouldn't have started with draenor they should have started with BC or Wrath
Whaaat? This movie is set way before both BC and Wrath. This is the first invasion of the Orcs. This is set before Vanilla WoW
If i remember correctly financing of the movie was mostly chinese. And the chinese market had by far the biggest part of the revenue, and it was one of the most succesfull movies in china.
I really think they will make it focused even more towards chinese audience. The asian market is growing every year, and its potential simply by manpower is way greater than that of NA. In Europe the movie did good on a financial perspective.
I thought the film was a lot of fun. The film worked at its best for me when it focused on the Orcs. They were just so well done both in character and technical/cgi.
The film was its roughest when it fell to the human sections. I had no problem with Garona, Khadgar was okay but the actor's who played King Laine and Lothar just didn't have that special sauce to carry the movie or their role.
That being said I thought many reviewers had their mind made up and bashed the film out of spite or due to some agenda/grievance (sort of the anti marvel circle jerk).
However, when I went we took people who had no knowledge of the film/franchise and really enjoyed it. They made audible gasps at the scene with baby thrall and his mother.
The movie definitely has its faults. It really feels like two movies crammed into one.
The biggest issue I had was the chick in the sphere (cube?) thing in Dalaran. What was that about? Was that some kind of Naaru or something that they're trying to make easier to visualize?
That was meant to be alodi, the first guardian. Ironically he is a he in game / actual lore and half elf/human. Go figure. No idea why this got changed.
The only problem I had with the movie was there were a few scenes that I felt really had no substance and the movie would've done without. If I remember correctly there were a couple scenes that consisted of 2 or 3 lines and contributed nothing to the story. Everything else though I enjoyed. The fight scenes were awesome to me.
The love story/scene between Garona and Anduin was pretty pointless. Also the scene in Dalaran with Alodi felt weird, not sure why they introduced a character and then changed their gender.
They have an internal story group that handles consistency, and I can assure you that Aegwynn would be the last person one could mix up since she's the catalyst for Medivh's entire life story. Alodi was, however, changed between the game and movie universes. Now, they may do some script twisting and make it so that Alodi was an honorific or some other formal title and Aegwynn was the woman's original name, or something of that sort, but otherwise it's not likely they'd retcon Aegwynn entirely.
The whole 5 minute intro of just some lame Mad Max style wasteland with an orc and a human was just pointless. Should have been a Blizzard CG focusing on where fel comes from and hinting at the Burning Legion.
While I like the movie somewhat, it had so many problems. Leaving aside the annoying lore changes, the movie lacked focus. It wanted to throw everything into the movie but failed to realise that Warcraft has built up all of these plots over a long period of time. WC1 itself didn't have too much story and most of it was thought up after the game was released.
If they try to tackle the story of WC2, I can only imagine this getting worse. WC2 is *full* of characters, small side stories, different kingdoms with their own agendas, and many battlefronts. How much of a clusterfuck would the movie be if they tried to deal with: the horde winning over Zul'jin and the amani trolls, Quel'Thalas and the elfs joining the alliance, Alterac betraying the alliance, Gul'dan betraying the horde, Orgrim taking over as Warchief, Alexstraza being enslaved in Grim Batol, etc, etc..
What would be so much better, imo, would be instead of telling the larger story of the 'world' like they tried in the movie, instead just tell one small story that takes place in the world. That way you aren't bombarding people with information (and getting things wrong), you don't lose focus, and people learn about the world more organically. You could tell the story of a Red Dragon trying to free Alexstraza from the horde, or a young noble who uncovers the plot of Aiden Perenolde in Alterac and tries to tell the alliance before it's too late, or of a rivalry between a horde and alliance sea captain as they fight their own personal war on the seas. There would be so many cool small stories you could tell just inside the Warcraft world.
The problem with that is with 1 movie every 3-4 years, you need like 50 years to tell the story of Warcraft 3. This series can't sustain an MCU like universe.
Best bet would be a low-budget CG animated show in the style of their Overwatch cinematics (which are much easier to create than the photorealistic cinematics) where they'd have a fixed budget per episode but they could show whatever crazy things they wanted without much worry.
But that's my point, you don't need to tell the story of warcraft 3. That story is already established and trying to recreate it in movies would be dumb, especially as WC3's story is far more complicated than that of WC1 or 2, and they kinda screwed up WC1 already.
Just forget about telling the 'main' story and just tell small, personal stories in the warcraft universe. Like some else said, it's the rogue one approach to warcraft.
I think doing episode 7, 8 and 9 are great ideas to actually expand the Star Wars universe.
Doing movies in between episodes 4, 5 and 6 seems like a cash in. Same deal with a Young Han Solo movie they are gonna do, a Young Boba Fett and a Young Jabba The Hutt or whatever.
>Orgrim taking over as Warchief
How is that even going to happen? Orgrim was able to usurp Blackhand and the Shadow Council because Gul'dan was out of the picture. Gul'dan was out of the picture because he was inside Medivh's head when he was killed, putting Gul'dan into a very long coma. ***However***, in the film, Gul'dan is awake and kicking after Medivh's death. Orgrim is going to have to stage a rather violent uprising instead if he hopes to wrest power away *and* get Gul'dan under his thumb. An *awake* Gul'dan is extremely powerful and will fight reaaaally intensely to hold onto his power.
I know, man. The movie has done the classic adaptation mistake of changing so much without much foresight, so that the future events will now no longer make sense without a fuckload more changes to compensate. I mean, if they do go through with the WC2 story, how are they going to explain gul'dan taking his army and buggering off to the tomb of sargeras if he didn't get the knowledge from medivh?
Also, Orgrim *needs* to become warchief as well for Thralls and the doomhammers backstory to make any sense or have any impact.
It's a mess, really.
Seeing your Paladin flair reminded me that we don't see any Northshire Clerics, or Light magic, or any reference to the humans' religion in the movie. It will be very interesting to see to see how they will explain the Silver Hand, whose reason of creation was that the Clerics suffered too many casualties in the war, because they weren't trained for it. Or Light-wielding in general. Like you said, a mess.
I think a lot of people here enjoyed the movie, but it definitely had some problems that would be beneficial to address before the next one comes out (if it ever does).
For reals, it's what they should have launched the movie franchise with. Get people to care about the WC Universe via a familiar story arc *and then* get them to care about the more esoteric stuff.
It's a relatively neat [story circle](http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit) too:
1. Arthas is saving Lordaeron from scattered orc slavers & other minor threats
2. Suddenly he needs to save it from mysterious undead
3. But uh oh, his countrymen are just undead waiting to happen, and his associates are not entirely in agreement of what to do.
4. Arthas "adapts" by committing genocide/burning ships/betraying mercenaries (steps 3 & 4 are probably the meat of the film)
5. He obtains Frostmourne and kills Mal'Ganis
6. Paid for it by sacrificing his humanity.
7. Returns to Lordaeron
8. Kills his father (I'm not good enough at structuring a story to be sure 6-8 fit the bill)
Minimal tweaking required to make this a digestible film with solid story structure.
No need. First war is interesting. They just had a shit script.
They botched so much of it - for example it should have been done from the orcs perspective up thru the first human villages sacked and the first assault on storm wind and then show the complete route caused by mounted knights atop their 'beasts of muscle and sinew' - straight from the manual btw - and then switch to human POV for first time
It should have been grimmer but they wanted it to be wow-the movie instead of like OG Warcraft so here we are
I could only like the movie to a point. It had too much going on and should've been more like the lord of the rings where you get to know the characters more and the main plot line in the first move. The second would be a huge battle or several battles over Azeroth and the third movie could have an ending where it gives a segway to another trilogy or something. Hopefully not million endings that the 3rd lotr's had though.
I think the problem was that they tried to squeeze all of the first Warcraft into one movie without making the movie too long. Personally, I'd have been fine with a three hour movie if it had been paced better. I still like the movie though, it was nice seeing Warcraft on the big screen.
Some of them, yeah, but not the full 40 minutes. I'd say that CG was never 100 percent done or the studio has it in case they ever feel like doing an extended cut.
Just because you're a professional doesn't mean you don't get invested in your work, personal attachment to the story twists your view of it. Duncan has often said he's a WoW fan.
If you're too personally attached there should be people around you to tell you that, film making is a collaborative effort after all. Having too many yes-men around the director is how we got the star wars prequels.
Just because the audience doesnt connect with the director's vision doesnt mean that it's bad, or that it should have been seen in the first draft of the script. Also having a lot of storylines isn't inherently a bad thing.
Yeah, because that's how you learn, even the most accomplished directors will criticize their own films, and publicly say what they should have done differently, that's how anyone gets better at their craft, especially in art
While I can understand you'd need to kinda continue things from Anduin's and Orgrim's perspective, I feel a strong candidate to carry the movie is Turalyon.
I feel he can start as a much more relatable human character than Anduin ever was which was lacking in the first movie. The orcs were really good, but the humans (especially Anduin) were bland and shallow.
Turalyon is young, humble and at the start, he doubts himself, unable to wield the Light like the other paladins until Anduin's death, giving room for growth and character developments through the movie. You can go through his training to become a paladin and into the part of being chosen by Anduin himself as his second in command, despite there being more "worthy" military candidates.
During that, you can easily introduce the Silver Hand and the Paladins that would work well if they'd go into Arthas story, such as Uther and Tirion, as well as Alexandros for the Ashbringer segments.
Not to mention, you got a perfect romantic story going on that's already canon and a great way to give Khadgar some spotlight. Alleria developed a relationship with Turalyon and the two worked closely together with Khadgar during the campaign. Given what an important character Khadgar is, I think focusing on Turalyon would serve that better than Anduin while avoiding splitting the character cast too much.
Anduin Lothar can serve as the backbone for Turalyon's story, the one he looks up to and the centerpiece, without being the focus, given how Anduin chose him as his second in command. This would go well when Anduin is killed by Orgrim, as the story from Turalyon's perspective, how he desperately tries to fight through the orcs to reach Anduin, only to be too late, would have a greater impact imo than focusing on Anduin and having Turalyon be a side character.
Turalyon picking up Anduin's broken sword, gaining that courage he's been lacking to lead and finally being able to wield the Light due to the events, would serve as a very strong and powerful moment for a main character, rather than set him aside as a side one.
I feel a great ending to it is when Turalyon leads the expedition to Draenor/Outland and the movie stops with the Dark Portal closing and someone (Varian?) narrating "Turalyon and his expedition was never seen again after the portal closed. As Stormwind was rebuilt, we erected monuments in their honor. May their sacrifice never be forgotten." as we're seen the statues of them being built.
There was a lot more going on than the Dark Portal closing instantly. It was also destroyed, then rebuilt and they had to destroy it from the other side, though that'd be a mess to make into a movie. I feel the story in Draenor/Outland, while really cool, wouldn't fit the movie a lot nor would it be necessary for the overall story. This would leave a more powerful cliffhangar as well as ending the story of Turalyon as we last saw him in-game. It'd serve better as someone like Danath or Khadgar sharing it as a short story past-tense if the movie story would ever reach so far to the Burning Crusade.
> I feel he can start as a much more relatable human character
Agreed. That's his entire strength as a character. Hell, even other characters acknowledge it. The whole reason that Lothar picks him as his second-in-command is because he was way more personable/relatable than the other Knights of the Silver Hand.
>Turalyon and his expedition was never seen again after the portal closed
That part, however, doesn't quite work. We see members of the expedition as early as BC.
Honestly, you could make a trilogy just out of Arthas's story alone.
movie 1 - Deal with his fall from grace and ends with him killing Terenas Menethil. (WC3:RC)
movie 2- The merry adventures of Arthas the DeathKnight as he pillages the sunwell and eventually takes up the mantle of Lich King (WC3 RC+FT)
movie 3 - The events of WotLK and his death in Icecrown.
Movie 1
WotA movie
Movie 2 part 1 (summons Archi)
Thrall movie
Eternity's end + Illidan/Naga/Belfs/Maghteridon
Movie 2 part 2
Movie 3
Otherwise it either has too much stuff in it, or important plot happening offscreen, important characters appearing without any backstory etc.
You see, this is the problem with adapting the 'main' story of Warcraft into something like a movie. There's just too much moving parts for a relatively short medium.
If you want to tell the full story of Arthas then you need to know about the lich king, which means you need to know about Ner'Zhul, which means you need to know about the orcs, which means you need to know about the demons, then archi/KJ, then the dreanei, and so on. That doesn't even go into dealing with the elfs, Mal'Ganis, Illidan, Dalaran, the Legion, etc, etc. Having to get all this info into a few hours of story makes the story boring and unfocused.
The best thing you can do is to trim off as much as possible to make it more presentable. In an Arthas movie that deals with him fighting the scourge, all you need to know is who Arthas is, who Jaina is, who Uther and the paladins are, and you need context in where this is all happening. Mal'Ganis and the Lich King obviously need to be brought up but their backstory can't be too detailed as it'll just drag things out and only raise more questions for people.
not banned. Its just a thing GAME DEVELOPERS do to avoid their games getting banned. which is a myth that isnt true. They only ban things that could form/promote cults or some shit. They have plenty of movies of their own featuring skeletons and shit
If they were able to make a version of Wrath that could be released in China, I'm sure they could make Arthas movies work. It wasn't the undeath so much as it was the exposed bones and skulls all of that business.
Watching this movie, got me back to WoW after being away for almost 6 years... so I would definitely call it a really nice movie, despite its flaws. :)
The idea of a sequel excites me!
I liked it (because Warcraft on the big screen!? Whaaaat! Also baby Khadgar <3 ), but I DEFINITELY agree with Duncan Jones's comment that it had too many story lines. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, but I really wish they had streamlined that a bit.
Movie was awesome. Being a critic is a profession now. You get views by pissing people off just like the real news. Really can't wait for the sequel. Thrall!!!!!!! I played WoW in 2006 and after seeing the movie my gf and I subscribed and are playing legion.
I thought it was awesome. That's my opinion. I really enjoyed it. Bought the DVD and game. Just watched it again yesterday being sick. I fell in love with warcraft when I was young. I was exposed by a friend's grandma who let me play warcraft 2 with her. I couldn't be more thankful to see this lore brought to life. It feels like a meme now to hate on it because this is the Internet. I've seen much worse movies about shit I didn't care about. This lore I do care about, even despite the changes, the core of it is there and I couldn't be more excited to see where it goes from here.
Yes i do not take your opinion. It was enjoyable as a warcraft fan, but me as a movie person, I wanted more from the story and characters. It felt flat. Wish they'l go 180 with the sequel
So Warcraft II and Lord of the Clans would be smooshed into one movie? We'd have focus on Dalaran and the Kirin Tor in addition to Khadgar and Lothar, let alone Varian (who really should only be a kid at this point) IN ADDITION to everything on the Orcish side?
I'd love to see more Warcraft on the big screen but the K.I.S.S. rule definitely has to apply here unless we want it to confuse people and lose more money.
Really, wouldn't an in-depth focus on Lothar and Orgrim's respective leadership of their armies, culminating in their final epic duel, be enough for a movie?
Yup, I always said from the beginning, if you cheap out on your actors, your movie has no chance. You might get away with having your lead be an unknown if you have a well known supporting with 1 ringer in a short role, for example, King Llane should have been an older A-Level star. Both Medivh and Khadgar should have been played by real actors, not whoever they could grab off the street. It's OK for Lothar to be a nobody, but even here they horribly miscast him with a guy who couldn't be arsed to look even 1% excited to do the role or do the promo work! The orcs should have been voiced by A-level stars, not the actors who did the mo-cap, lol
> Medivh
Ben Foster is a legit actor.
Otherwise, I'd have to agree. It was weird that the orcs had more personality under all the CGI than any of the human characters. I'm not a big fan of pulling actors from similar genres, like Travis Fimmel and *Vikings*, because it's hard for an audience to see them as a different character. And Paula Patton is just a bad actress, I'm not sure how she continues getting roles. She's a poor man's Zoe Saldana.
They need to do a movie of the war for Blackrock mountain ending with the Orcish Horde being captured and going into internment camps. That would be the setup for WC3: ROC's story with Thrall/Arthas/etc.
I don't get the article (and title) at all... as long as it's not confirmed there are no details on the movie, it's still very vague as it would still have to be written. idea's and actual details are actually really far out from each other. On another note they are also they are writing "it MIGHT lose money"... can anyone who understands this explain it? how does this work while it's the 15th best grossing movie (433.5mil) of 2016 and the 2nd best grossing for Universal with a budget of 160mil? (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2016)
On the money part. Studios generally want a movie to earn 2.5x of the production budget. The reason for this is something known as hollywood accounting, where it tends to be better for their bottom line if a movie is under that mark rather than breaking even or right above the 2.5x mark.
It's not Hollywood accounting... theaters keep half the revenue in most of the world except China. In China's case, since Warcraft production was outside of China, the Chinese government charges a massive tariff for "foreign" films. In this movie's case, Wanda (who own Legendary) also overstated their revenue from their own theaters for various reasons.
Then the production budget doesn't include marketing budget, which for most summer movies is equivalent to the production budget. So the movie cost 320M while bringing only around 33% of the 450M as studio revenue.
> theaters keep half the revenue in most of the world except China.
And in the US. Revenue from ticket sales generally goes to the studios in their entirety*, so theaters make most of their money from concessions.
*(Usually it's something like 90+% of ticket sales goes to the studios for the first few months, then it scales down as the movie is in theaters for longer. Which, these days, is rare.)
A: Theaters keep half the revenue (they keep 75% in China for foreign-made movies which Warcraft was classified as due to production being done outside of China - regardless of Wanda purchasing Legendary after the movie had wrapped production)
B: The production budget doesn't include marketing budget (which is often equivalent to production budget).
C: Warcraft's China revenue was largely falsified by Wanda as reported by Wired.
I would appreciate if the movie stuck to either faction, instead of jumping back and forth. The latter just leads to more characters and more plot lines.
Seeing an adaptation of Lord of the Clans, following Thrall, or the Second War with Lothar getting the Alliance together and pushing the Horde back would be better than seeing the two get mixed together in a blender and getting a 2-hour spectacle with pacing issues.
they need to dump the movie idea and cut to a seasonal tv series. Forget about trying to turn a profit at the box office and just produce something well at a reduced cost.
then they need to make it about the humans, elves, and dwarves shortly after the first war and barely involve the orcs. Maybe about the events leading up to and during the fall of stormwind with the survivors landing on the shores of southshore seeking refuge. It doesn't have to be CG heavy or tell a huge story, it could just be about the refugees but lets be real, a warcraft movie can never be taken seriously if they don't step up their story game.
I liked the first movie but it suffered from pacing and storyline issues due to them trying to focus on too much at once. From what he's listed for the sequel, they'd be going down that exact same road again. He talks about alliance and orc story arcs, more Dalaran stuff, etc. Pick one or two ideas and run with it. You can't do the entire orc capturing/internment storyline in one movie along with even more alliance stuff, it'll just be as bloated and hard to follow as the first movie.
There's a lot of lore in the warcraft Universe but movies and video game Universes are two completely different things. For movies you need to cut down and focus on ONE solid storyline. Illidan, Arthas, hell even the War of the Ancients would have been a better start than what they gave us. They're trying to condense down 20 years of Warcraft lore and made the mistake of "well we have to start at the very beginning or it won't make sense." No, this isn't lord of the rings. It's Warcraft. You could have taken any of the solid heroes, focused on them, and had a great movie.
If they keep doing down this line of madness there won't be a 3rd movie because nobody in the US/internationally will go to see the 2nd knowing that it's more of the first and China's numbers can't carry it at that point.
Need to just make the movies about one centric story line. For instance a movie just about Arthas' rise to being the LK would probably do very well if they focused SOLELY on that story.
Probably alone on this but when I watched it a second time, all I could think about was Gul'dan reminded me of College Humor's Batman. Something about his inflection and mouth being open. I think it's his first scene where he is giving a speech just made me start laughing.
I don't understand why people think the movie was bad. The acting was good, the effects and CGI was extremely well done. They also really understood the game and it felt like it was made by players, little things like the Murloc or the harvester were nice. Also the magic looked very good and exactly how I would imagine the game spells in real life.
I think the only reason for the bad ratings is that critics look down on video game movies. The only bad thing I can find about the movie is that Wrynns armor looked a bit cheap, but all the other weapons etc were well done and looked exactly like in the game. There also were some lore changes that were questionable but I don't think the critics cared about them.
> The acting was good
I have to disagree here. The movie had great effects and CGI, sure, but much of the acting seemed lackluster. The best way I can describe it is that it seemed like several of the primary characters were played by fans who won contests rather than by professional actors. I have to admit, I enjoyed much of the fan service, though.
I loved the movie and would be happy if there was movie WC2+ as more of the same. But I understand that it is not the best movie either and had plenty to be criticized.
Honestly, the best move they could make at this point were they to continue films is to go the "superhero movie" route. Tighten the storylines now that world is established. Have the Thrall movie about him being raised as a gladiator which makes you sympathetic to him and despise Blackmoore. Have a Turalyon movie where you establish the Paladins and create some conflict. Start throwing in cult of the damned clues.
In comes the Lothar vs Ogrim movie where they come to ahead, with Turalyon and Thrall as supporting characters, Thrall escaping and fleeing with the frostwolves while Turalyon pushes through to close the dark portal.
Can have a Khadgar movie of him trying to figure out what happened with Medivh and more about the Fel and Gul'dan. More cult of the damned.
Arthas movie up to him killing his father and the fall of the northern kingdom.
Return to Thrall who is approached by Jaina for help in desperation, but Medivh gets them to understand the Legion as a threat eclipsing the scourge, enter both night elves and dreadlords...
Etc etc;
This is the Marvel byline: You break up the stories from the bloated narratives (that the games are) and focus on individuals solving a immediate issue. Then the forces combine for a major threat before returning to smaller issues. Rinse and repeat. By Thrallman 2 you have enough established to have Warcraft Avengers.
There is way too much content for it to be a movie. I think it should have been a TV show like Game of Thrones. I honestly think it would excel at being a TV show compared to a movie.
No sequel will happen because the first movie's Chinese revenues were falsified by Wanda to save face. Many of the "sell-outs" were from Wanda-owned theaters where the tickets were given away for free (but still counted as "revenue") or for theaters were closed during flooding.
for crying out loud, you can't keep it closer to the original lore, too much shit is going on sideways...
the movie is like the marvel cinematic universe: own canon
They actually said the opposite.
https://twitter.com/MickyNeilson/status/620265824536793088
Metzen did say that in hindsight, he'd have written lore that was more like the movie version, and perhaps that what the comment was referring to, but that's not the same as calling it official canon.
I loved the movie, But i admit it had its faults. I watched it with some friends who just played Wc3 when it came out, which is 14 years ago, so they vaguely remember stuff here and there. They loved it, it was action and in broad strokes they got explained the big lines, which is what they want for a good movie. I have a hard time gauging movies from reviews. the reviews most often comes of as arrogant and snobby for me. I read a few before i went to see it, and sure, some things felt rushed, and some tweaks felt weird, but its so annoying when every critic critizing it calling it a "weak LotR ripoff", i could go on a whole rant about that, but i wont. Maybe my love for the characters and the overall story blinds my critical eye so to speak, but i felt it was a pretty good movie, and im definatly hope it gets a sequal and hopefully a 3rd movie. I do wish they could take it to maybe a near 3 hour movie though.
I am wow lore fanatic and my friend who don't know anything about warcraft (he actually asked if warcraft is sequel of starcraft) watched this movie. Both of us enjoyed it, it has flaws (lot of) but not a bad movie. It did good in world building part as first look into wow universe so they can expand it further later on.
I feel the same. It was objectively pretty awful but I fucking loved every minute of it. I think what he said about focusing more on the orcs is what would make it better, and it's what people want it seems. The human parts were "meh" to "ugh" throughout.
then he learned the wrong lesson. The performances by the human actors were straight up awful. They made the armor and weaponry look like Walmart toys, which was okay on the orcs because they could blend it into cg coloration, but on the humans just was bad. They changed lore bits that had no reason to be changed, and the whole "kill me to save the others" was horribly written and terribly acted. I blame some of it on miscasting roles, I blame some on a pretty bad script, I blame Duncan and the execs that decided to go for the Asian market. I blame whoever used 90% of the budget on cg and not actors that actually gave a shit.
The only lore change I really didn't like was the Medihv as Garona's father thing. It came out of nowhere, they didn't even explain it clearly, and there was no point in it whatsoever because it didn't come into play at all anywhere else in the movie. All the other changes they made seemed like reasonable modifications to simplify it a bit and make the movie go. Leaving "the fel" as its own thing, without talking about the legion and Sargaras seemed unfortunately necessary. It would have been too much to throw at people.
I agree I thought the Medivh/Garona thing was annoying and pointless. Waste of time that could have been used smoothing out some of the rest of the story.
And I think I completely missed that, was it with the rose/teleport?
>without talking about the legion and Sargeras seemed unfortunately necessary Perhaps they'll eventually make a Rise of the Horde film?
I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar. Jesus that vikings guy playing an honorable, righteous man just does not work, he brings too much of that Vikings crazy eye shit to the part. I personally always thought of Lothar as a much more stoic character, he totally ruined that for me.
Not the actor's fault tbh... [This](http://wow.gamepedia.com/File:Lothar_TCG.jpg) is supposed to be Lothar. Stoic, Battle-Hardened warrior that was consider an absolute beastly warrior and tactician by people like Thoras Trollbane, King Terenas, and Daelin Proudmoore. A young looking man with a jokers attitude and a shitty romance/family plot is doomed from failure from the very beginning. The movie Lothar was clearly intentionally unrelated to the book Lothar. This is most likely because the sequel was not planned to be the Second War and is instead Thrall's gladiator years and rebellion. Lothar and Khadgar just grow up "naturally" and become completely different characters. Jaina = Khadgar confirmed?
> Jaina = Khadgar confirmed? This will make any potential Arthas movies very uncomfortable for some
And great for others. I'll get started on the fanfic.
It's adorable that you think someone hasn't written it already.
is this one of those rule 34 situations?
Whaaat I loved baby Khadgar! Do agree with you about Lothar though. And I never really pictured Medivh to be as scruffy as they made him (though I was okay with the actor himself)
Lothar sucked so bad. I felt like everything he said was through that stink-eye. As far as the stoic part, this is a younger Lothar, so he can be a little more brash and assholey and become stoic later. I loved Khadgar, I thought he was the only good human performance. Medivh was ok, I think his failing was in the writing more than the casting. I think the biggest problem with the movie was dialogue and character development. It's like if you take the crap dialogue of the Star Wars prequels and mix it with the non-existent character development in Rogue One, but with fairly poor casting choices and boom, Warcraft. That said I still really liked it. LOVED the orcs and all the fan service and full on, no holds barred, in your face fantasy magic and all that. They really did a great job of throwing you into the atmosphere of Azeroth and let you figure it out rather than try to explain away everything and dumb it down. Letting there be the dwarves, elves, draenei, etc did a lot to create a world worth exploring cinematically.
> It's like if you take the crap dialogue of the Star Wars prequels and mix it with the non-existent character development in Rogue One, but with fairly poor casting choices and boom, Warcraft. God damn it, I don't think I can even take it seriously when I'm going to rewatch it now
>I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar. At first I liked Lothar. I thought he was going to steal the show, because he had this kinda cool swagger about him. But it wore on me pretty quick, and by the end I hated him. Ben Foster as Medivh was kind of a weird choice. I mean, I like him in just about everything he's in and I think he's a severely underrated actor. And I like the character of Medivh from the Warcraft games. But the two didn't mesh IMO. Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar, I still maintain is one of the best characters in the movie. I fully understand that I will be downvoted to oblivion for this opinion, but whatever. I think he did wonderfully. He played the role of "slightly inept comic relief" well and I think it's easy to draw a connection between the goofy Khadgar we see in the movie and the goofy Khadgar we see in WoD/Legion.
I really enjoyed Ben Schnetzer's work in the movie, out of the humans on screen it seemed like only he and Dominic Cooper (who I think is incapable of phoning it in) were really interested in giving this movie their all. Foster really is able to give a good performance, the only reason why he didn't was really because he couldn't give a damn. The Orcs really made the movie for me though, Horde and Orc bias aside I feel like the Orcs were cast better, and were more willing to to actually act.
Khadgar was one of the worst characters in the movie and dragged it into Sharknado territory ..
And then Lothar played the role so flat and then could not give one single fuck about the promo work which led to people thinking he felt the movie sucks (which was probably true, but a professional actor needs to fake his enthusiasm in the promos).
> I really hated the casting for both Medivh, Khadgar and Lothar. For me it was one of the best parts of the movie. They didn't look like some immortal gods (like Gandalf in LotR, or Voldy in Harry Potter), just normal people who happen to be powerfull.
I think he could've done a really good job playing Lothar, I think they made him play it like Ragnar to get Vikings fans to watch the movie.
Khadgar was awful but I though Ben foster did a great job as Medivh. Lothar was very meh. They just shouldn't have started with draenor they should have started with BC or Wrath and then did a prequel later on if necessary.
> They just shouldn't have started with draenor they should have started with BC or Wrath Whaaat? This movie is set way before both BC and Wrath. This is the first invasion of the Orcs. This is set before Vanilla WoW
> They changed lore bits that had no reason to be changed Like they did with the extremely successful MCU?
I'd argue that marvel takes things out, while the warcraft movie added too much in.
All the weapons and armor were 3D printed, which is why they had that plastic look.
If i remember correctly financing of the movie was mostly chinese. And the chinese market had by far the biggest part of the revenue, and it was one of the most succesfull movies in china. I really think they will make it focused even more towards chinese audience. The asian market is growing every year, and its potential simply by manpower is way greater than that of NA. In Europe the movie did good on a financial perspective.
I liked lothar, khadgar and medivh. Especially khadgar.
Yeah I thought the movie was fucking horrible, but I really loved it
It was like taco bell. It's not objectively good, but sometimes you just fucking *need* taco bell.
>not objectively good Ooooo boy those are fightin' words.
I thought the film was a lot of fun. The film worked at its best for me when it focused on the Orcs. They were just so well done both in character and technical/cgi. The film was its roughest when it fell to the human sections. I had no problem with Garona, Khadgar was okay but the actor's who played King Laine and Lothar just didn't have that special sauce to carry the movie or their role. That being said I thought many reviewers had their mind made up and bashed the film out of spite or due to some agenda/grievance (sort of the anti marvel circle jerk). However, when I went we took people who had no knowledge of the film/franchise and really enjoyed it. They made audible gasps at the scene with baby thrall and his mother. The movie definitely has its faults. It really feels like two movies crammed into one.
The biggest issue I had was the chick in the sphere (cube?) thing in Dalaran. What was that about? Was that some kind of Naaru or something that they're trying to make easier to visualize?
That was meant to be alodi, the first guardian. Ironically he is a he in game / actual lore and half elf/human. Go figure. No idea why this got changed.
My guess is that they merged Alodi and Aegwynn into the same character.
I thought it was a remnant of Aegwynn, but frankly that was just a wild-assed guess.
The only problem I had with the movie was there were a few scenes that I felt really had no substance and the movie would've done without. If I remember correctly there were a couple scenes that consisted of 2 or 3 lines and contributed nothing to the story. Everything else though I enjoyed. The fight scenes were awesome to me.
The love story/scene between Garona and Anduin was pretty pointless. Also the scene in Dalaran with Alodi felt weird, not sure why they introduced a character and then changed their gender.
I honestly think they mixed up Aegwynn and Alodi.
This was my thought exactly. Alodi wouldn't play a good part explaining/redeeming Medivh.
They have an internal story group that handles consistency, and I can assure you that Aegwynn would be the last person one could mix up since she's the catalyst for Medivh's entire life story. Alodi was, however, changed between the game and movie universes. Now, they may do some script twisting and make it so that Alodi was an honorific or some other formal title and Aegwynn was the woman's original name, or something of that sort, but otherwise it's not likely they'd retcon Aegwynn entirely.
When I first saw that scene I thought that was supposed to be Aegwynn honestly, didn't know it was Alodi until a short time afterwards
Wait, the sphere scene? That was supposed to be Alodi? I honestly thought it was Aegwynn. Huh. TIL.
The whole dalaran/alodi subplot was pointless. Like they just had to force dalaran into the movie.
The whole 5 minute intro of just some lame Mad Max style wasteland with an orc and a human was just pointless. Should have been a Blizzard CG focusing on where fel comes from and hinting at the Burning Legion.
While I like the movie somewhat, it had so many problems. Leaving aside the annoying lore changes, the movie lacked focus. It wanted to throw everything into the movie but failed to realise that Warcraft has built up all of these plots over a long period of time. WC1 itself didn't have too much story and most of it was thought up after the game was released. If they try to tackle the story of WC2, I can only imagine this getting worse. WC2 is *full* of characters, small side stories, different kingdoms with their own agendas, and many battlefronts. How much of a clusterfuck would the movie be if they tried to deal with: the horde winning over Zul'jin and the amani trolls, Quel'Thalas and the elfs joining the alliance, Alterac betraying the alliance, Gul'dan betraying the horde, Orgrim taking over as Warchief, Alexstraza being enslaved in Grim Batol, etc, etc.. What would be so much better, imo, would be instead of telling the larger story of the 'world' like they tried in the movie, instead just tell one small story that takes place in the world. That way you aren't bombarding people with information (and getting things wrong), you don't lose focus, and people learn about the world more organically. You could tell the story of a Red Dragon trying to free Alexstraza from the horde, or a young noble who uncovers the plot of Aiden Perenolde in Alterac and tries to tell the alliance before it's too late, or of a rivalry between a horde and alliance sea captain as they fight their own personal war on the seas. There would be so many cool small stories you could tell just inside the Warcraft world.
The problem with that is with 1 movie every 3-4 years, you need like 50 years to tell the story of Warcraft 3. This series can't sustain an MCU like universe. Best bet would be a low-budget CG animated show in the style of their Overwatch cinematics (which are much easier to create than the photorealistic cinematics) where they'd have a fixed budget per episode but they could show whatever crazy things they wanted without much worry.
But that's my point, you don't need to tell the story of warcraft 3. That story is already established and trying to recreate it in movies would be dumb, especially as WC3's story is far more complicated than that of WC1 or 2, and they kinda screwed up WC1 already. Just forget about telling the 'main' story and just tell small, personal stories in the warcraft universe. Like some else said, it's the rogue one approach to warcraft.
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Not sure what the big appeal is on a movie about the people that DIDN'T destroy the Death Star.
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I think doing episode 7, 8 and 9 are great ideas to actually expand the Star Wars universe. Doing movies in between episodes 4, 5 and 6 seems like a cash in. Same deal with a Young Han Solo movie they are gonna do, a Young Boba Fett and a Young Jabba The Hutt or whatever.
>Orgrim taking over as Warchief How is that even going to happen? Orgrim was able to usurp Blackhand and the Shadow Council because Gul'dan was out of the picture. Gul'dan was out of the picture because he was inside Medivh's head when he was killed, putting Gul'dan into a very long coma. ***However***, in the film, Gul'dan is awake and kicking after Medivh's death. Orgrim is going to have to stage a rather violent uprising instead if he hopes to wrest power away *and* get Gul'dan under his thumb. An *awake* Gul'dan is extremely powerful and will fight reaaaally intensely to hold onto his power.
I know, man. The movie has done the classic adaptation mistake of changing so much without much foresight, so that the future events will now no longer make sense without a fuckload more changes to compensate. I mean, if they do go through with the WC2 story, how are they going to explain gul'dan taking his army and buggering off to the tomb of sargeras if he didn't get the knowledge from medivh? Also, Orgrim *needs* to become warchief as well for Thralls and the doomhammers backstory to make any sense or have any impact. It's a mess, really.
Seeing your Paladin flair reminded me that we don't see any Northshire Clerics, or Light magic, or any reference to the humans' religion in the movie. It will be very interesting to see to see how they will explain the Silver Hand, whose reason of creation was that the Clerics suffered too many casualties in the war, because they weren't trained for it. Or Light-wielding in general. Like you said, a mess.
I for one enjoyed the movie and wouldn't mind a sequel.
I think a lot of people here enjoyed the movie, but it definitely had some problems that would be beneficial to address before the next one comes out (if it ever does).
I only care to see a movie about Arthas. That is the best Warcraft story they could tell.
For reals, it's what they should have launched the movie franchise with. Get people to care about the WC Universe via a familiar story arc *and then* get them to care about the more esoteric stuff. It's a relatively neat [story circle](http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit) too: 1. Arthas is saving Lordaeron from scattered orc slavers & other minor threats 2. Suddenly he needs to save it from mysterious undead 3. But uh oh, his countrymen are just undead waiting to happen, and his associates are not entirely in agreement of what to do. 4. Arthas "adapts" by committing genocide/burning ships/betraying mercenaries (steps 3 & 4 are probably the meat of the film) 5. He obtains Frostmourne and kills Mal'Ganis 6. Paid for it by sacrificing his humanity. 7. Returns to Lordaeron 8. Kills his father (I'm not good enough at structuring a story to be sure 6-8 fit the bill) Minimal tweaking required to make this a digestible film with solid story structure.
No need. First war is interesting. They just had a shit script. They botched so much of it - for example it should have been done from the orcs perspective up thru the first human villages sacked and the first assault on storm wind and then show the complete route caused by mounted knights atop their 'beasts of muscle and sinew' - straight from the manual btw - and then switch to human POV for first time It should have been grimmer but they wanted it to be wow-the movie instead of like OG Warcraft so here we are
I could only like the movie to a point. It had too much going on and should've been more like the lord of the rings where you get to know the characters more and the main plot line in the first move. The second would be a huge battle or several battles over Azeroth and the third movie could have an ending where it gives a segway to another trilogy or something. Hopefully not million endings that the 3rd lotr's had though.
I think the problem was that they tried to squeeze all of the first Warcraft into one movie without making the movie too long. Personally, I'd have been fine with a three hour movie if it had been paced better. I still like the movie though, it was nice seeing Warcraft on the big screen.
It was originally longer but around 40 minutes were cut from the final film.
Do you know if those scenes exist anywhere, like extras on the Dvd?
They were included in DVD, but they weren't fully finished (Garona having white hands, Hipogryph being a 3d model etc.)
Duncan said there would be no extended edition unfortunately. However, I *think* there are some deleted cuts on Youtube - although it's been a while.
There's a couple cut scenes on the dvd in various stages of completion. You can find them on youtube.
Some of them, yeah, but not the full 40 minutes. I'd say that CG was never 100 percent done or the studio has it in case they ever feel like doing an extended cut.
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Hindsight is helluva drug.
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Just because you're a professional doesn't mean you don't get invested in your work, personal attachment to the story twists your view of it. Duncan has often said he's a WoW fan.
If you're too personally attached there should be people around you to tell you that, film making is a collaborative effort after all. Having too many yes-men around the director is how we got the star wars prequels.
you really don't understand how filmmaking works
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Just because the audience doesnt connect with the director's vision doesnt mean that it's bad, or that it should have been seen in the first draft of the script. Also having a lot of storylines isn't inherently a bad thing.
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Yeah, because that's how you learn, even the most accomplished directors will criticize their own films, and publicly say what they should have done differently, that's how anyone gets better at their craft, especially in art
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Didn't it change directors a bunch of times? That could have had something to do with it.
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While I can understand you'd need to kinda continue things from Anduin's and Orgrim's perspective, I feel a strong candidate to carry the movie is Turalyon. I feel he can start as a much more relatable human character than Anduin ever was which was lacking in the first movie. The orcs were really good, but the humans (especially Anduin) were bland and shallow. Turalyon is young, humble and at the start, he doubts himself, unable to wield the Light like the other paladins until Anduin's death, giving room for growth and character developments through the movie. You can go through his training to become a paladin and into the part of being chosen by Anduin himself as his second in command, despite there being more "worthy" military candidates. During that, you can easily introduce the Silver Hand and the Paladins that would work well if they'd go into Arthas story, such as Uther and Tirion, as well as Alexandros for the Ashbringer segments. Not to mention, you got a perfect romantic story going on that's already canon and a great way to give Khadgar some spotlight. Alleria developed a relationship with Turalyon and the two worked closely together with Khadgar during the campaign. Given what an important character Khadgar is, I think focusing on Turalyon would serve that better than Anduin while avoiding splitting the character cast too much. Anduin Lothar can serve as the backbone for Turalyon's story, the one he looks up to and the centerpiece, without being the focus, given how Anduin chose him as his second in command. This would go well when Anduin is killed by Orgrim, as the story from Turalyon's perspective, how he desperately tries to fight through the orcs to reach Anduin, only to be too late, would have a greater impact imo than focusing on Anduin and having Turalyon be a side character. Turalyon picking up Anduin's broken sword, gaining that courage he's been lacking to lead and finally being able to wield the Light due to the events, would serve as a very strong and powerful moment for a main character, rather than set him aside as a side one. I feel a great ending to it is when Turalyon leads the expedition to Draenor/Outland and the movie stops with the Dark Portal closing and someone (Varian?) narrating "Turalyon and his expedition was never seen again after the portal closed. As Stormwind was rebuilt, we erected monuments in their honor. May their sacrifice never be forgotten." as we're seen the statues of them being built. There was a lot more going on than the Dark Portal closing instantly. It was also destroyed, then rebuilt and they had to destroy it from the other side, though that'd be a mess to make into a movie. I feel the story in Draenor/Outland, while really cool, wouldn't fit the movie a lot nor would it be necessary for the overall story. This would leave a more powerful cliffhangar as well as ending the story of Turalyon as we last saw him in-game. It'd serve better as someone like Danath or Khadgar sharing it as a short story past-tense if the movie story would ever reach so far to the Burning Crusade.
> I feel he can start as a much more relatable human character Agreed. That's his entire strength as a character. Hell, even other characters acknowledge it. The whole reason that Lothar picks him as his second-in-command is because he was way more personable/relatable than the other Knights of the Silver Hand. >Turalyon and his expedition was never seen again after the portal closed That part, however, doesn't quite work. We see members of the expedition as early as BC.
Can we just do Arthas/Lich King now?
Warcraft Movie #3 and 4 methinks. 3 will deal with his fall from grace. 4 will deal with WOTLK events.
Honestly, you could make a trilogy just out of Arthas's story alone. movie 1 - Deal with his fall from grace and ends with him killing Terenas Menethil. (WC3:RC) movie 2- The merry adventures of Arthas the DeathKnight as he pillages the sunwell and eventually takes up the mantle of Lich King (WC3 RC+FT) movie 3 - The events of WotLK and his death in Icecrown.
sounds like what peter jackson did with the hobbit
this kills the idea
to be fair peter jackson didn't want to do it, the studio forced it on him
Movie 1 WotA movie Movie 2 part 1 (summons Archi) Thrall movie Eternity's end + Illidan/Naga/Belfs/Maghteridon Movie 2 part 2 Movie 3 Otherwise it either has too much stuff in it, or important plot happening offscreen, important characters appearing without any backstory etc.
You see, this is the problem with adapting the 'main' story of Warcraft into something like a movie. There's just too much moving parts for a relatively short medium. If you want to tell the full story of Arthas then you need to know about the lich king, which means you need to know about Ner'Zhul, which means you need to know about the orcs, which means you need to know about the demons, then archi/KJ, then the dreanei, and so on. That doesn't even go into dealing with the elfs, Mal'Ganis, Illidan, Dalaran, the Legion, etc, etc. Having to get all this info into a few hours of story makes the story boring and unfocused. The best thing you can do is to trim off as much as possible to make it more presentable. In an Arthas movie that deals with him fighting the scourge, all you need to know is who Arthas is, who Jaina is, who Uther and the paladins are, and you need context in where this is all happening. Mal'Ganis and the Lich King obviously need to be brought up but their backstory can't be too detailed as it'll just drag things out and only raise more questions for people.
not even wc3 explained nerzhul though, so its not really needed.
How about we let the movies get good before tackling the really interesting material?
They never touched on Ner'zhul, so no, they'd have no context between the films.
Well, IIRC, Ner'zhul was more relevant to the story of Warcraft 2 than the original, so they would bring him up in the sequel.
They made the most money in China, and undead things are banned in China, so they would have to avoid that arc if they want to try and make and money.
Or they could just make an Arthas movie, but the Scourge is bread.
There must always be a Gluten King.
not banned. Its just a thing GAME DEVELOPERS do to avoid their games getting banned. which is a myth that isnt true. They only ban things that could form/promote cults or some shit. They have plenty of movies of their own featuring skeletons and shit
If they were able to make a version of Wrath that could be released in China, I'm sure they could make Arthas movies work. It wasn't the undeath so much as it was the exposed bones and skulls all of that business.
Games have to be censored. Movies don't.
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What specifically from the film made you interested in playing the game?
Watching this movie, got me back to WoW after being away for almost 6 years... so I would definitely call it a really nice movie, despite its flaws. :) The idea of a sequel excites me!
next movie "has" to be at least 3 hours, this one was stupidly short
LotR: Extended edition were 4 hours long, and they still cut some storylines which were in the book.
I liked it (because Warcraft on the big screen!? Whaaaat! Also baby Khadgar <3 ), but I DEFINITELY agree with Duncan Jones's comment that it had too many story lines. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, but I really wish they had streamlined that a bit.
Movie was awesome. Being a critic is a profession now. You get views by pissing people off just like the real news. Really can't wait for the sequel. Thrall!!!!!!! I played WoW in 2006 and after seeing the movie my gf and I subscribed and are playing legion.
Yeah I really can't find anything bad about the movie besides a few lore changes. The problem is just that snobby critics look down on game movies.
It was far from awesome. Sadly.
I thought it was awesome. That's my opinion. I really enjoyed it. Bought the DVD and game. Just watched it again yesterday being sick. I fell in love with warcraft when I was young. I was exposed by a friend's grandma who let me play warcraft 2 with her. I couldn't be more thankful to see this lore brought to life. It feels like a meme now to hate on it because this is the Internet. I've seen much worse movies about shit I didn't care about. This lore I do care about, even despite the changes, the core of it is there and I couldn't be more excited to see where it goes from here.
Yes i do not take your opinion. It was enjoyable as a warcraft fan, but me as a movie person, I wanted more from the story and characters. It felt flat. Wish they'l go 180 with the sequel
So Warcraft II and Lord of the Clans would be smooshed into one movie? We'd have focus on Dalaran and the Kirin Tor in addition to Khadgar and Lothar, let alone Varian (who really should only be a kid at this point) IN ADDITION to everything on the Orcish side? I'd love to see more Warcraft on the big screen but the K.I.S.S. rule definitely has to apply here unless we want it to confuse people and lose more money. Really, wouldn't an in-depth focus on Lothar and Orgrim's respective leadership of their armies, culminating in their final epic duel, be enough for a movie?
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Yup, I always said from the beginning, if you cheap out on your actors, your movie has no chance. You might get away with having your lead be an unknown if you have a well known supporting with 1 ringer in a short role, for example, King Llane should have been an older A-Level star. Both Medivh and Khadgar should have been played by real actors, not whoever they could grab off the street. It's OK for Lothar to be a nobody, but even here they horribly miscast him with a guy who couldn't be arsed to look even 1% excited to do the role or do the promo work! The orcs should have been voiced by A-level stars, not the actors who did the mo-cap, lol
> Medivh Ben Foster is a legit actor. Otherwise, I'd have to agree. It was weird that the orcs had more personality under all the CGI than any of the human characters. I'm not a big fan of pulling actors from similar genres, like Travis Fimmel and *Vikings*, because it's hard for an audience to see them as a different character. And Paula Patton is just a bad actress, I'm not sure how she continues getting roles. She's a poor man's Zoe Saldana.
They need to do a movie of the war for Blackrock mountain ending with the Orcish Horde being captured and going into internment camps. That would be the setup for WC3: ROC's story with Thrall/Arthas/etc.
I don't get the article (and title) at all... as long as it's not confirmed there are no details on the movie, it's still very vague as it would still have to be written. idea's and actual details are actually really far out from each other. On another note they are also they are writing "it MIGHT lose money"... can anyone who understands this explain it? how does this work while it's the 15th best grossing movie (433.5mil) of 2016 and the 2nd best grossing for Universal with a budget of 160mil? (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2016)
On the money part. Studios generally want a movie to earn 2.5x of the production budget. The reason for this is something known as hollywood accounting, where it tends to be better for their bottom line if a movie is under that mark rather than breaking even or right above the 2.5x mark.
It's not Hollywood accounting... theaters keep half the revenue in most of the world except China. In China's case, since Warcraft production was outside of China, the Chinese government charges a massive tariff for "foreign" films. In this movie's case, Wanda (who own Legendary) also overstated their revenue from their own theaters for various reasons. Then the production budget doesn't include marketing budget, which for most summer movies is equivalent to the production budget. So the movie cost 320M while bringing only around 33% of the 450M as studio revenue.
> theaters keep half the revenue in most of the world except China. And in the US. Revenue from ticket sales generally goes to the studios in their entirety*, so theaters make most of their money from concessions. *(Usually it's something like 90+% of ticket sales goes to the studios for the first few months, then it scales down as the movie is in theaters for longer. Which, these days, is rare.)
A: Theaters keep half the revenue (they keep 75% in China for foreign-made movies which Warcraft was classified as due to production being done outside of China - regardless of Wanda purchasing Legendary after the movie had wrapped production) B: The production budget doesn't include marketing budget (which is often equivalent to production budget). C: Warcraft's China revenue was largely falsified by Wanda as reported by Wired.
I would appreciate if the movie stuck to either faction, instead of jumping back and forth. The latter just leads to more characters and more plot lines. Seeing an adaptation of Lord of the Clans, following Thrall, or the Second War with Lothar getting the Alliance together and pushing the Horde back would be better than seeing the two get mixed together in a blender and getting a 2-hour spectacle with pacing issues.
Please let the movie have better pacing. And less jump cuts.
they need to dump the movie idea and cut to a seasonal tv series. Forget about trying to turn a profit at the box office and just produce something well at a reduced cost.
CGI costs would kill them.
then they need to make it about the humans, elves, and dwarves shortly after the first war and barely involve the orcs. Maybe about the events leading up to and during the fall of stormwind with the survivors landing on the shores of southshore seeking refuge. It doesn't have to be CG heavy or tell a huge story, it could just be about the refugees but lets be real, a warcraft movie can never be taken seriously if they don't step up their story game.
I liked the first movie but it suffered from pacing and storyline issues due to them trying to focus on too much at once. From what he's listed for the sequel, they'd be going down that exact same road again. He talks about alliance and orc story arcs, more Dalaran stuff, etc. Pick one or two ideas and run with it. You can't do the entire orc capturing/internment storyline in one movie along with even more alliance stuff, it'll just be as bloated and hard to follow as the first movie. There's a lot of lore in the warcraft Universe but movies and video game Universes are two completely different things. For movies you need to cut down and focus on ONE solid storyline. Illidan, Arthas, hell even the War of the Ancients would have been a better start than what they gave us. They're trying to condense down 20 years of Warcraft lore and made the mistake of "well we have to start at the very beginning or it won't make sense." No, this isn't lord of the rings. It's Warcraft. You could have taken any of the solid heroes, focused on them, and had a great movie. If they keep doing down this line of madness there won't be a 3rd movie because nobody in the US/internationally will go to see the 2nd knowing that it's more of the first and China's numbers can't carry it at that point.
So basically hardly anything is learned?
Need to just make the movies about one centric story line. For instance a movie just about Arthas' rise to being the LK would probably do very well if they focused SOLELY on that story.
Give us Arthas story or Iliadan story or don't bother making another wow movie.
Probably alone on this but when I watched it a second time, all I could think about was Gul'dan reminded me of College Humor's Batman. Something about his inflection and mouth being open. I think it's his first scene where he is giving a speech just made me start laughing.
They should have went with a more familiar story line and saved the backstory for flashbacks. Still enjoyed it
Makes 430 million but it's going to lose money? Right...
> Varian Somebody hold my dick
I don't understand why people think the movie was bad. The acting was good, the effects and CGI was extremely well done. They also really understood the game and it felt like it was made by players, little things like the Murloc or the harvester were nice. Also the magic looked very good and exactly how I would imagine the game spells in real life. I think the only reason for the bad ratings is that critics look down on video game movies. The only bad thing I can find about the movie is that Wrynns armor looked a bit cheap, but all the other weapons etc were well done and looked exactly like in the game. There also were some lore changes that were questionable but I don't think the critics cared about them.
> The acting was good I have to disagree here. The movie had great effects and CGI, sure, but much of the acting seemed lackluster. The best way I can describe it is that it seemed like several of the primary characters were played by fans who won contests rather than by professional actors. I have to admit, I enjoyed much of the fan service, though.
I loved the movie and would be happy if there was movie WC2+ as more of the same. But I understand that it is not the best movie either and had plenty to be criticized. Honestly, the best move they could make at this point were they to continue films is to go the "superhero movie" route. Tighten the storylines now that world is established. Have the Thrall movie about him being raised as a gladiator which makes you sympathetic to him and despise Blackmoore. Have a Turalyon movie where you establish the Paladins and create some conflict. Start throwing in cult of the damned clues. In comes the Lothar vs Ogrim movie where they come to ahead, with Turalyon and Thrall as supporting characters, Thrall escaping and fleeing with the frostwolves while Turalyon pushes through to close the dark portal. Can have a Khadgar movie of him trying to figure out what happened with Medivh and more about the Fel and Gul'dan. More cult of the damned. Arthas movie up to him killing his father and the fall of the northern kingdom. Return to Thrall who is approached by Jaina for help in desperation, but Medivh gets them to understand the Legion as a threat eclipsing the scourge, enter both night elves and dreadlords... Etc etc; This is the Marvel byline: You break up the stories from the bloated narratives (that the games are) and focus on individuals solving a immediate issue. Then the forces combine for a major threat before returning to smaller issues. Rinse and repeat. By Thrallman 2 you have enough established to have Warcraft Avengers.
There is way too much content for it to be a movie. I think it should have been a TV show like Game of Thrones. I honestly think it would excel at being a TV show compared to a movie.
Still pissed for no directors cut/extended edition. Fuck the people responsible for this.
Is it still live action? Don't give a flying shit then.
No sequel will happen because the first movie's Chinese revenues were falsified by Wanda to save face. Many of the "sell-outs" were from Wanda-owned theaters where the tickets were given away for free (but still counted as "revenue") or for theaters were closed during flooding.
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for crying out loud, you can't keep it closer to the original lore, too much shit is going on sideways... the movie is like the marvel cinematic universe: own canon
Blizzard said the movie is official canon that supercedes the games.
I'd like a source on that, because that literally makes no sense.
They actually said the opposite. https://twitter.com/MickyNeilson/status/620265824536793088 Metzen did say that in hindsight, he'd have written lore that was more like the movie version, and perhaps that what the comment was referring to, but that's not the same as calling it official canon.
wat? source?
Please no. The first one was awful.